Warning – RANT: I hate LinkedIn

ByLaurel Papworth

NOTE: I just deleted a tonne of contacts on LinkedIn – if one of ’em is you, yell at me. I probably did it by mistake. I was trying to get rid of nasty recruitment spammers. I’m down from over 100 to just 55. And more to delete…. I should really sit back and polish…

Linked Out

NOTE: I just deleted a tonne of contacts on LinkedIn – if one of ’em is you, yell at me. I probably did it by mistake. I was trying to get rid of nasty recruitment spammers. I’m down from over 100 to just 55. And more to delete….

I should really sit back and polish this whine, presenting it as some sort of pseudo- research-ethnographic – profound -unbiased report on the social network, LinkedIn. Sod that! It’s my blog 😛 and I wanna have a bitchfest. (Feel free to join me).

Reasons why I hate LinkedIn:

  1. I paid for full membership. Didn’t use it. Dropped membership. Now when I try to do something I consider ‘basic’ it says ‘premium’. Barrier to entry all wrong.
  2. I made the mistake early on of signing up anyone and everyone from my previous companies (Cisco in Asia and UUNET/MCI WorldCom in Europe/Middle East). Big mistake, those companies have about 100,000 employees. My error. Or wasn’t clearly defined.
  3. Don’t bother contacting me if you have Sales Director or Recruitment Consultant in your title. Real life friends, who are groovy and web 2.0 savvy, like Natalie from Xpand, excepted. I didn’t join LinkedIn so you could whore your lousy jobs and revolting products/services to me. And I don’t care how well I “fit” your target demographic. You just don’t get what social networks are about, do you?
  4. I hate the way normally sane, nice, friends see LinkedIn as an excuse to deal with me differently. Put on a “professional” hat and it’s suddenly ok to inflict me, your bestest best friend, with your jobs/products junk mail? Why do I get treated as a number as soon as I am on a “professional” network? Let’s meet on Facebook – I’ll check out your ‘posted items’ and ‘classifieds’ if they are relevant.
  5. clunky interface. ’nuff said. oh and icky colours.
  6. “Your network” supposedly giving me stats and graphs on my network is less than useful. Or at least, I can’t figure it out. You might be able to.

I could go on and on – but I figure you guys have some gripes you’d like to share too. Or do you like LinkedIn? I wrote this blog post then went looking for a “I hate linkedin” picture. Found the one at top on Coding Horror’s Opting out of LinkedIn. Which I intend reading as soon as I hit the Publish Post button. *lays a smackdown on the Publish Post button*

EDIT: I’m giving LinkedIn one last chance. I just sent out “add me” emails to a bunch of real contacts. What can I say? I have a dysfunctional relationship with social networks. *sighs* 😛

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11 Comments

  1. I’m very careful what I do with the information I have been allowed to glean about people from social networks. To me its a form or trust. I;m also very careful who I link to. Have been from day one. Guess I have this privacy thing going, no I don’t think you can guess that, but I do.

    LinkedIn is n worst than the others, Its just how you use it. How you approach it. Its like Facebook, aspects of Facebook for me would make a great rant. But I just use it my way. That maynot be the intended way.

  2. I just don’t have this experience with LinkedIn. My level of connectedness is ostensibly similar to yours and I just don’t get the recruitment spam – maybe two so far this year.

    Maybe I have my profile set up all wrong – keywords, skills, etc. You must have the right recruiter spam mojo in yours.

  3. I have to agree with you about the interface- I really really hate it. I don’t enjoy using it. The information design is confusing and just feels like words everywhere.
    No spammy mail yet tho.

  4. Well I think the spammy email might’ve been my own fault.

    You see, I joined in early 2004. I didn’t have many friends *cries* so I signed up anyone and everyone who asked me. Yes, I was a LinkedIn floozy.

    So yesterday when I got to 102 members, I deleted 52. And because I can do math, and you can’t, that means I had exactly 50 left. I messaged a few people, blogged a bit, Facebooked my LinkedIn action and now I am back up to 101 members. But they are MUCH better quality friends – not nasty recruitment spammers – real people I have met and you know, know.

    @Jasmin, but you are right the interface still sucks.

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  11. Hi Laurel, good article. I also got tired of LinkedIn inability to connect people influence for serious business, plus the spam was giving me the S&%Ts… I would appreciate your thoughts on a new startup http://www.8Contacts.com its like LinkedIn but connects people directly and without the social media aspect. Thanks

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